Eating like P. G. Wodehouse – the ultimate Anatole menu from The Code of the Woosters

If you were lucky enough to receive the gift of Wodehouse this Christmas, you may wish to heed a few words of advice from the author before diving in on a Wodehouse reading binge. In his introduction to The World of Jeeves omnibus (1967), Wodehouse warns against reading too much Bertie and Jeeves in one sitting. Instead he advises taking the stories in measured doses, and prescribes the following menu for a day’s reading:

Such willpower does not come easily to us all. If you’re a glutton for food as well as literature, why not extend this feast to include some of Anatole’s mouth-watering dishes? Victoria Madden has applied her schooling in the French language to decipher Anatole’s menu from The Code of the Woosters for our enjoyment.

After an amusing discussion at Baker’s Daughter blog on food in books and eating the Enid Blyton way, and a prompt from that witty Wodehouse fan the Old Reliable Ashokbhatia, I have polished up my A level French and scoured the internet to bring you this Wodehousian feast. Aficianados will recall it is the menu put together by Bertie in The Code of the Woosters after he anticipates being jugged in lieu of Aunt Dahlia:

‘Bertie! Do you mean this?’

‘I should say so. What’s a mere thirty days in the second division? A bagatelle. I can do it on my head. Let Bassett do his worst. And, ‘ I added in a softer voice, ‘ when my time is up and I come out into the world once more a free man, let Anatole do his best. A month of bread and water or skilly or whatever they…